Comments on: Megalania

By: Deakal

Deakal — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:43:53 +0000

While doing research into large black cats I was talking to a friend that lives near by about the large goannas and he told me this. After a flood in 2002 he went to check on some fences he thought may have been knocked down. While cleaning rubbish out of the fence his attention was drawn to the largest goanna he had ever seen. He says it would have been a good 12 feet long and about 15 inches wide and was quite dark in colour. He repeated to me a few times that this animal had an attitude problem and he had to leave the fence an move away.

By: cypto-info

cypto-info — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:20:14 +0000

Megalnanias are a giant(As in giant I mean FORTY FREAKING FEET LONG!!!) It lives in ancient Australias outback. There has been person whos name I can’t remember that actually took a plasture of a giant lizard footprint. People have also seen the megalania. It probly does live in the outback and nobody has discoverd it because Astrailia(Next to Antartica) is the least populated continet on earth. Its full name is megalania prisca which means ancient giant butcher. The Aborigonies might have encountered the megalania and killed the entire species of the largest terrestrial lizard a megalania. I could go on but I’m done.

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOL VID!
(This was written by a 11 year old.)

By: dandoesasia

dandoesasia — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:21:54 +0000

Just to say that I spent a year living in Northern Oz and spent some time in Cape Tribulation. I believe it is the only rain forest not to have suffered during the ice age and as such, species survived that should have been killed off during this period. It is also the only place in the world were coral reefs meet rain forests. Most of it is undiscovered, however whilst I was there, apart from hearing stories about Kangaroos that live in trees, I also heard tales of giant lizards living in the forest.

I think the guy from Australia who doubted these stories because he had not heard them should take a trip to Cape Trib to see what he can find.

By: Sordes

Sordes — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 20:26:03 +0000

The actual size of Megalania is still a controversy, because the known fossils are only very fragmentary. It seems that many old estimates were much too high, especially the weight calculations were often ridiculous. Today most paleontologists propose a size for the big individuals of about 5,5m. As Megalania was a very stocky animals, and much more bulkier than all living monitors, it had probably a weight more comparable to a crocodile of the same length, what would be roughly 500kg, perhaps more but also perhaps lesser.
BTW, most weights you can read for the komodo dragon are also highly exagerated.

By: mystery_man

mystery_man — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:12:07 +0000

According to the Geographica World Atlas and Encyclopedia, the population density of Australia is 6.7 people per square mile. Compare that to 79.5 per square mile for The USA and 8.5 per square mile for Canada. Australia is indeed sparsely populated and most of the population is concentrated in metropolitan areas. That leaves a good amount of vast, little explored terrain.

By: folcrom

folcrom — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:00:32 +0000

Cant say whether the megalania prisca exists or not, but the australian goanna can grow much large than the oft quoted 2 meters.

Ask any truck driver who has driven the bush roads south of the Bunyip State park in Victoria. Goannas 8 feet long are sometimes seen sunning themselves on the roads.

The locals around Tonnimbuk also say that it’s not uncommon to see 12 foot goannas wander out of the park and through farm properties.

They may not be “prisca”, but they sure are big, as big as the Komodo dragon anyway.

By: CryptoGoji

CryptoGoji — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 04:21:19 +0000

Well, big or not, I agree with the gentleman in the peice, ” If you ran into on of these in the bush, you wouldn’t come back to tell the tale…” or something to that effect. These things were friggen huge… Twenty to Thirty feet long…. about six and a half to eight feet tall weighting in a something like two or three tons… Wow. The teeth on this thing were almost as big as the palm of your hand… three to five inches long! Its almsot the same length and size as and Allosaurs. And yea, it prolbly could bit the front end of a car in two boxerpit. It would be hard to belive that something like that could walk around in the outback without a sheep rancher finding some tracks or something… I know of several that have ranches the size of Rhode Island or just a bit smaller… were talking hundreds of thousands of acers here. Somebody would have seen some kind of tracks or droppings by now. I say it just doesnt stack up to still being alive. Not too many witness out there, but then you might just die of fear looking at something like that coming out of the underbrush towards ya.

By: cryptidsrus

cryptidsrus — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:29:37 +0000

I agree the description was pretty vague.

However, IF one survived i Do agree with cmgrace. Australia would be perfect.

I also agree that I would not want to be nowhere near this thing.

By: fmurphy1970

fmurphy1970 — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:13:50 +0000

Never heard of Megalania before. Wouldn’t want to meet one on a dark night though!
I’ve always wondered about the criteria used to determine extinction. If it is supposed to have become extinct 20,000 years ago, I assume what is meant is that this is the carbon dating estimate of the latest known fossil/bones. In my thinking that would give a strong indiction the species was extinct, but not a 100% guarantee. And I think that applies to any cryptid we are searching for, expecially those thought to be recently extinct.

By: showme

showme — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:00:20 +0000

In that same segment of Animal X, didn’t a rancher claim to have found a huge lizard footprint on his land?